The Independent

A couple more candidates have joined the race to become the MPP for Sarnia-Lambton.

Rachel Willsie will run for the Ontario Liberals in the Feb. 27th election. Willsie is a registered nurse with 15 years of experience. She recently went back to school to pursue a degree in psychology and political science.

Ontario’s Liberal Leader, Bonnie Crombie, is making health care one of the cornerstones of her campaign.

Keith Benn is now the official candidate for the New Blue Party. He’s run for the party in both the Sarnia-Lambton and Lambton-Kent-Middlesex ridings in the past.

Benn, a geological consultant in the minerals industry, calls the Feb. 27 vote “totally unnecessary, unwarranted.

“Doug Ford called it because Doug Ford is in a complete panic, because he sees his major political allies, which are the Liberals in Ottawa, circling the drain nd it’s just getting worse and worse for them. And I think he understands that as it gets worse for them, it’s going to drive his party and his government down as well in the public opinion polls.”

Benn and Willise join incumbent Bob Bailey of the Progressive Conservatives who is seeking his fifth term in the riding and Candace Young, a math professor and union leader at Lambton College, who is running for the NDP.

The New Democrats also have chosen its candidate in Lambton-Kent-Middlesex. Kathryn Shailer, a retired educator from Alvinston, will be carrying the party’s standard in the provincial election. It will be her third run at politics, the second provincially.

She joins incumbent Steve Pinsonneault of the Progressive Conservatives who won the May 2024 by election to replace Monte McNaughton and Lucan-Biddulph Mayor Cathy Burghardt Jesson, the Liberal candidate in both the byelection and this race.

So far, the Green Party of Ontario does not have candidates nominated in either of the Lambton Ridings.